Scene 3 – On the Cards
Unfortunately (for me), my new chair (with big circular things for legs) doesn’t fit under my desk (and I don’t have a laptop), which means no new stuff coming from my head to the screen. I am also unable to sit long enough to read/respond to your posts. What you get instead is the third scene (first draft) from On the Cards (working title). Copyright (of course) Cage Dunn 2018.
Scene 3
Old? Chiri was old? How could that be? Unless her estimation of the time-scale was so far out of whack that …? No, she couldn’t believe it. Nor could she look in a mirror to check. She shuddered. The wisest choice would be to let him go, to leave it be, wait until tomorrow.
Chiri watched his tall striding form as he pushed through the throng. A dark shape — was it a cloaked person or a cloud-shadow? — welled up behind his back; it hid him for a moment, but didn’t hide the sound. The tinkle from the rapid movement of many keys as they jangled together.
He turned, grabbed at his belt, glared at Chiri over the heads of the market crowd, glared at everyone around him. Lifted his phone and turned his head to look down at the screen.
A possum darted out from behind one of the greengrocery stalls. It grabbed the phone, spun in mid air and darted off along the wires and guy-ropes of the tents and shelters. A possum with keys held tight in his tail.
Chiri wanted to laugh. She put her hand on her head to pat down the wayward strands that lifted from her head-scarf and tugged in the breeze. She shrugged and turned back to her work.
A woman in the line smiled at Chiri.
Well, hello Mariana. Nice to see you again.
“I’ll do a reading, shall I?” Chiri said. Why did she remember this woman as someone who’d been read before? Was she important, or was the situation so far from normal — what the hell was normal in a five-dimensional time vortex anyway? — that she was re-living parts of days now rolled into one?
No. It couldn’t happen. The time-lines weren’t that flexible. The river of time had a defined flow. Everything moved to a specific directional pattern. Everyone else had their life one day at a time, one date after another, regular as clock-work, as a calendar, as night followed day. No one else had only Saturdays; no one else had their time-line scattered like a game of fifty-two pick up, but with thousands of cards. Seven thousand two hundred cards, as a minimum, and in five dimensions. Or was it six? Five. The sixth lay at the centre of it all. Only five were accessible. Or could be accessed. Different.
She sighed. The smell was still there, the hint of Him when they had their moment in that time. Chiri leaned on the door frame and turned to invite Mariana inside.
Mariana was gone.The line of querents melted away to become part of the crowd as he stormed towards her like a rampaging bull elephant.
He stopped, took another step closer. Might be a bit cranky based on the fire and brimstone Chiri saw in his aura. “Didn’t we finish our business?” she let the curtain slide closed to be sure he understood he wasn’t welcome.
He leaned in, towered over as if she were a diminutive child. He opened his mouth so close to her face Chiri could see his dental work — and a black spot that indicated more was required.
“Why did you send your thief to steal my keys?” his voice was sharply pitched, cracked, icy — not at all like his aura, so hot that Chiri felt the need to back away from the flames. She didn’t. She wouldn’t.
“Do you see any keys? Do you see a phone?”
She smiled and flounced her skirt. Nothing held it down because there wasn’t anything in her pockets.
It might be better to get him out of sight, away from the sideways glances from the passing groups of people who looked worried for her. They’d call the police. She didn’t want that.
“I’ll do your cards, shall I?” she said. Not a proper reading, because the cards didn’t like him, or wouldn’t respond, but if it wasn’t a reading, it didn’t have to be what he expected, did it? If he wouldn’t accept the truth, she wasn’t going to give him any.
“I don’t want my bloody cards read!” He leaned in closer; so close she could see the sparks in his iris. “I want you to call your friend and get my keys back.” He took a quick intake of breath. “Now,” he said. “Right bloody now.”
Chiri leaned forward, pushed him with her elbow, and lifted the curtain flap open.
“Would you rather create a scene, or do you wish to step inside so we may speak as reasonable adults; so we can talk about what the thief who stole your phone and keys looks like?”
“I want my keys.”
“I don’t have your keys.” She dropped the curtain and lifted her hands, waved them, turned them over and back up again, shook her sleeves. He wasn’t concerned about the phone, didn’t mention it, even though she’d given him two opportunities.
“Your thief stole them.”
“I saw a possum, not a thief. Nothing I can do about the wildlife.”
“What do you want from me?” He leaned in, lifted his right hand in a fist, moved it slowly closer, unclenched it until the fingers became like claws, reached for her arm.
Chiri pushed backwards through the curtain and slid into the darkness of the tent. If she could slow her heartbeat, dry the rush of sweat on her face and back, she’d feel more capable. But there was nothing she could do about it, except what she felt was right. When it felt the right time.
If only the cards would respond to him, tell her if he was the one, or if she’d made a terrible mistake. They didn’t. She got no sensation from the cards at all. Nothing. For the first time she could remember, the cards were cold and distant and closed tighter than a fearful clam.
He followed her in and sat down with his arms folded across his chest.
“What do you want from me?” he repeated.
“I want nothing.”
“You said I have a daughter.”
“You do.”
“And you’re her mother.” He sneered.
“Yes.”
He rolled his eyes. Stopped. Stared behind Chiri. His face went white, eyes widened. He lifted his left arm and pointed.
“What is that?” his hoarse voice whispered.
Chiri wasn’t going to turn around. He’d seen a ghost, that was all. Just a ghost. She couldn’t tell him that, he’d have to figure it out for himself. If she told him, he’d think it another trick. Probably even if she did nothing.
“What is that?” he repeated.
“Are you in the habit of needing to say the same thing more than once?” Chiri leaned forward, lifted the hand which held the cards.
“That’s … that’s … not possible.” He shuddered. “What did you do?” He lifted the runner cloth. Leaned down to look under the table.
“There’s nothing there,” Chiri said, “unless you’re just looking for an excuse to look under my skirts — or is there something else you need to see?”
A card fell onto the table. The black card. Flat black. No sheen or shine or glimmer.
“I think you should leave,” Chiri lifted the card and put it back in the deck.
“I want to know what you meant. A daughter? I can’t have a daughter, I’m …”
“You’re …?”
“I’m not a father,” he finished. “It’s not possible, that’s all. I’d remember, wouldn’t I?” The look he gave her brought chills to the back of her legs. “I’d remember you.”
Chiri felt the words he’d meant to say. I’d remember if I slept with someone so old.
She looked at her hands. They didn’t look old. No liver spots, no sun spots. Very white in places, very brown in places. The heritage of her kind. In this world, they’d say she had the skin of a zebra. She didn’t. It was the skin of a changer. In this case, a lost changer, and one who’d also lost her daughter. And changers only ever had one egg for reproduction.
He stood up, still staring at the space behind Chiri.
“Whatever you want, I’m not the one to give it to you. If you want money — here, take this!” He tossed a wad of notes held together with a paper wrap onto the table, spun on his spiffy black patent-leather loafers, and blew out of the doorway.
Gone. Again. But his words drifted back. “And don’t bother me again. I’ll set the cops on you for fakery.”
That went well. She wanted to leave it there, but he was the one, it was his smell. It was Him. And only he could lead her to the door that held Saffo.
Chiri would have to go after him, try again, convince him somehow. She couldn’t lose the chance now, not when she was so close.
Hopefully, by Wednesday I’ll be able to fit back at my desk. Until then, adieu!
